Hello, I’m sorry for not speaking Croatian, although it’s not an unknown language to me, I’m afraid I’ve never learned it.

I’m here because after the last game (and what I would consider an extremely unfair, out of context, and bordering a closeted xenophobic attitude from most european media) I’ve read a lot of things against Argentina that I don’t agree with, but even more importantly, that kind of “dirtied” my personal history with Croatia as a nation and a people. So I’m gonna tell you a story.

I’m from Argentina, and my father’s best friend (and my baptism godfather) was born in Rome, but he’s not italian, he’s Croatian. You see, he was born in Rome due to his parents fleeing WW2 and Tito. They escaped through the Alps and got captued in Italy by British soldiers. They got sent to a concentration camp because the war was ending, and the Allies had already agreed with Stalin to divide the world, therefore the affaire of the “slavic refugees” was a politically spicy one. Most of them ended up being forced to return, many of those got killed by the communists. Luckily, some were allowed to continue, and my godfather’s parents were one of them. Sadly, it was not all good luck. The concentration camp was awful, and although they never “genocide” the prisoners, like all forced and improvised imprisonment camps, the conditions were poor at best. My godfather lost a brother to diseases during that concentration camp internment, and his mother always passionately hated the british ever since (ironic, I know).

Alas, life moves on, and once in Rome they were allowed transport to Argentina, where they hope to make a living. They moved to Bariloche, a patagonian city back in the early 50s, back then (and even today) most of that area was unpopulated, so they essentially moved to the middle of nowhere, to work the land. They became, like all immigrants in Patagonia, an essential character of the area. The croatian community prospered, and integrated well among with all other immigrants and locals. They eventually managed to create a Hostel and live from tourists.

During the rule of Josip Broz Tito, other (although few) croatian managed to escape here, which caused once a very bizarre instance in which my godfather’s father received two “big gentlemen” that came visiting during the night asking for two other croatians passing by. My godfather always told me it was like a Tarantino scene, with his godfather receiving them with a gun under the table, fully knowing the other two gentlemen were probably Tito’s men and equally armed. Nothing happened, fortunately, they just passed by asking questions. But it’s an anecdote that shows you the type of life this people had.

In Argentina they managed to make a living, they had many children, and all of them went to college and moved across the country. One of them, my godfather, went to La Plata, a city full of University campuses, it was there he knew my father, who was also from another region of the country, and an everlasting friendship was born.

That’s why I always heard croatian as a kid, he would speak it to surprise me as a child (such a foreign sound!) during every metting. But also because that’s the language he spoke with his parents via telephone. Here in La Plata, he became a known personality across the croatian community, and lead many events during the immigration festival we have in Ensenada, mostly by cooking traditional dishes. Her daughters all danced on those events making sure typical croatian folk music is represented among the more numoreous italian and spanish communities.

When Croatia reached the WC final we all saw the match together. And when Croatia won against Brazil the first thing we did at out house was calling him and discussing the match.

Due to both of my uncles being in the Navy, and my godfather being interested in the history of both of his nations, growing up I also happened to heard a lot of stories about the crude and brutal civil war during the 90s, and how some argentines went as volonteers to aid Croatia and, perhaps more infamously, how Argentina violated UN sanctions and sold illegal weapons to the Croatian independents troops. The most famous personal anecdote I heard came from a later UN peacekeeping mission veteran, that told me how insane it was. Apparently, once UN decided to intervene a bit, he was with one of the argentines blue helmets of the UN, at some point, their unit stopped at a town during travel, the scene was tense, everyone was armed, but being from the UN nothing happened. They stayed there for eating and logistical stuff, and then went back to transport, it was there they realized that one of the FN FAL a soldier had was not the one he entered with, but he got confused and picked it up leaving the original somewhere else. How could he get confused? you ask. Well, it turns out the FN FAL he grabbed was also from the Argentinean army. This was during the time in which our goverment still sweared they didn’t sold any weapons to Croatia, so they all laughed realizing they just interacted with one of those “non-existant” weapons his goverment “did not” sold.

In any case, throughout my life, every single interaction I had with Croatia and croatians was a positive one. Full of respect, humor, food and history. I just wanted to say this event was the first time I heard croatian people saying awful stuff about my Country, things I read that I will not repeat.

I just wished to inform you that overhere, we saw the whole thing completely different. We know how to win and lose, [when we are shown respect, we show it back.](https://assets.goal.com/v3/assets/bltcc7a7ffd2fbf71f5/bltde09116e6a1bdbef/60ea780925ac523fba500678/bb2bba0db61a0db8fe8e99e217f13f3615ca727a.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&format=jpg&height=800&quality=60&width=1200) But the Netherlands [did not show respect.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FjnbGFAWYAMOeyC?format=jpg&name=medium) And when we get attacked, we bite back. And quite frankly everyone here was surprised about how stupidly agressive they behave both before (with many players downplaying messi and openly stating it was a sure win) and after the match (with the number 19 entering the Argentine zone after the match to search for Messi and pick up a fight).

I also wished to inform you that contrary to what some had said, Argentineans always has the same policy: all rivals are tough in a world cup match, and no-one should be taken for granted. So naturally no, we’re not “preparing awful tricks” against Croatia (like I read someone said in a newspaper called *Sportske Novosti*), nor are we insulting such a great team. All comments have been exactly the same: what a great player Modric is, and what a tough rival Croatia will be, fully praising their tactical discipline and team spirt.

I wrote all this in the hope at least some madman would read it, and in the hope that whatever happens on the field, the relationship between Croatians and Argentineans I always known and loved is not ruined by this.

That is all, thank you for reading, and good luck during the match. It will be a sad game, since whatever happens, it will be the last WC game of one of two football legends. Either Modric or Messi.

34 comments

  1. Nobody thinks anything remotely bad about Argentinians.

    That one article you’ve read is not something you should connect with sentiments of poeple, not just in Croatia, but anywhere in the world. Journalist today are sensationalist hunters for clicks and that’s universal.

    In fact, Croats tend to cherrish Argentina far more than your biggest rival Brazil. Not just because of significant Croatian emmigration there, but because of greater general similarity between Argentina and Europe.

    You can sometimes maybe be perceived as being on the “wilder side”, as is the case with whole of South America compared to Europe, but that’s nothing that can tarnish generally positive relations.

  2. Cool story bro, not sure what having a godfather with fascist parents has to do with football in 21th century, but by managing to connect these two I would say you have some Croatian blood as well.

  3. >You see, he was born in Rome due to his parents fleeing WW2 and Tito. They escaped through the Alps and got captued in Italy by British soldiers. They got sent to a concentration camp because the war was ending, and the Allies had already agreed with Stalin to divide the world, therefore the affaire of the “slavic refugees” was a politically spicy one.

    Your godfathers parents were most probably fascist i.e. his father was probably a member of “Ustaše” which was a Croatian fascist army. Not sure if you’re aware of it or not, but that’s the reason they fled and were captured.
    Not a proud moment in Croatian history.

  4. First of all, most of this has nothing to do with football. As I understand, you know about croatian history only from the tales you were told. And guess what, you probably heard only one version of the story and from a person that was very friendly to you so naturally you assume he was right. I don’t say he isn’t, but the fact is a lot of war criminals from Croatia (and other countries) went to Argentina after the Second World War so he might not be as innocent as you might think.

    Secondly, this really sounds like you felt personally offended by what some sports journalist wrote. A lot of newspapers wrote hyped their own teams and wrote bad stuff about the others so don’t take those things so seriously.

  6. Im from Serbia and I also think that you are “dirty bastards” but only on the football field, outside of football you are cool, btw Croats like Argentina more then we Serbs do

  7. Yeah, the godfather got told fairytales about NDH and scary stories about Tito, that is for sure.. You should take that with a grain of salt…

    About the game and arrogance.. I don’t think there will be much problems. We know you kinda play dirty to everyone, it is not personal, you just want to provoke, and if the game is not going your way, you will do it again. But as I said, I don’t think we will take it personally.

    And it will not ruin any Croatia-Argentina connections that exist…

  8. I simply love how your country was a pioneer in accepting migrants. Pavelić, Eichmann, Mengele, Schwammberger, Priebke, Bohne… You guys are so warm, welcoming and always ready to help those in need.

  12. Majko mila patetike, i to one najgore vrste… Patetika prekomorskih ustasa…

    Nije nam dosta nasih, sad nam i od tam dolaze…

  13. TLDR my guy’s godfather is a descendant of fascists & somehow this has to do with football. Source: trust me bro.

  14. Firstly, I want to start by saying I absolutely love Argentina. I’ve been lucky enough to visit your beautiful country twice and your people and culture are incredible. However, when it comes to sport.. I’m sad to say I don’t always share that same admiration for your football team as I do for your country. I was watching the match between Argentina and Netherlands and I was actually favouring Argentina, but you simply can’t use “disrespect of your opponents” to try excuse the temper tantrum Paredes displayed by deliberately kicking the ball towards the bench. “Biting back” as you mention in your post, is completely different to throwing an actual tantrum, and honestly I hope you can be objective enough to see that you shouldn’t try justify your player in this instance. What he did was very immature, stupidly aggressive and frankly, embarrassing. But no matter what I may think of your football team sometimes, I still adore your country.

    Ps. Regarding what you mentioned about sportske novosti, please don’t take some random clickbait article to heart, and I hope you know it doesn’t even come close to reflecting what the average Croatian person thinks.

  16. im sorry dude, but the news or 100 people saying dumb shit means nothing..

    they have literal nazi supporters in america, does that mean they are all nazis?

    there are always special individuals in every country, every place, means nothing

  18. Nobody thinks anything bad about Argentina here. Although Croatian diaspora in Argentina is politically very shady (not all, but a lot of them are descendants of Croatian fascists and still hold on to fascist ideas), we respect Argentina. Not just through the volunteers during the Croatian War of Independence, Argentina helped us by selling us weapons when we were under a biased arms embargo while being under attack from Serbia/Yugoslavia. Thank you for that!

    On the other hand, your players were super rude against the Netherlands. They were also very unsporty at the last world cup against us and I don’t take it as something offending, I’ve learned that Southamerican teams, Brazil and Argentina, just generally play dirtier football compared to us. It’s probably a cultural thing, I don’t think that Argentinians are bad people because of it.

    Hopefully tomorrow a better team wins and advances without any referee questions; and I just hope it’s us, of course. You already have two stars, let us get one 😁

  19. Look group stage 2018 game croatia vs argentina, your country plays dirty, get very mad when losing.
    Also messi didnt even give a hand to our players after losing. I dont hate argentina, but man your national team is rly dirty and doesnt know how to lose.

  22. I don’t think “Tito’s men” would have gone all the way to Argentina to assassinate your friend’s parents if they were random people trying to escape communism.

    Check if his surname was Pavelić, Vrančić or another surname of a genocidal maniac.

  23. Ill give you a good example of why we somewhat dislike you. It has to do with basic respect and humanity. When we brat you 3.0 your coach didnt shake hands with ours and just left the field, same as brazil couple of days ago. Our coach said these were the only two instances in his career where coaches were this arrogant and disrespectful. Also, dutch were shit to you so you decided to be shit too?

  24. There are 4 teams left and they are all amazing!! You don’t make this far without talent and skill!! It will be a tight match with 2 worthy opponents tomorrow.

  26. OP was correct, his message was long and boring.

    TL;DR : OP read a news article and makes an assumption of an entire nation based on that.

  29. That is weird, I haven’t found or heard any news portals that speak ugly about Argentina and I am following all of the ones we have. All of those news portals are just reporting what Messi has said about Croatian team, Messi this, Messi that, Messi here, Messi there, Argentina said this, their manager said that.. I must have missed something fs

  32. Before this last game, Argentina was definitely one of the top teams on my list. Not anymore, as the unsportsmanlike conduct like this is unheard of. I sincerely hope all the worst for you in the sporting world from now on.

  33. Oh please, you can’t defend the disgraceful behaviour of the argentine players, especially Paredes, by shifting the blame on the dutch. What will you do if your players act like this again, just blame it on us? Shameless

  34. kum bia ustasa, izbjega bleiburg i sad smo dobili ovu sapunicu, u kojoj nikome nije skroz jasno koja je poanta?

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